Hinged-lid boxes, suitable for containing flat, substantially thin articles such as index cards in a stacked upright (face-to-face) orientation are well known in both the patent literature and in the consumer marketplace. From very early beginnings as thin metal index card file boxes (U.S. Pat. No. 1,340,034 to Fosberg is exemplary), a plethora of new designs for hinged-lid storage and dispensing boxes for flat articles came into existence around the time of the computer diskette. The earliest versions of dispensing boxes for diskettes and similar flat articles included both “dropdown/forward opening” hinged-lid boxes and “backward opening” hinged-lid boxes, where in either embodiment the stacked contents are exposed when the box is opened. When the 3½ inch diskettes became popular, some forward opening boxes appeared wherein the lid, once opened, served as a tray for holding additional diskettes. The evolution of box designs for small flat items such as index cards and computer media also included other materials besides metal for their construction, namely paperboard (e.g. for new/blank media) and molded plastic (e.g. for recorded media requiring indexing). Paperboard hinged-lid boxes are also commonly used for cigarette packs, (U.S. Pat. No. 5,823,331 to Manservigi, et al. being exemplary). Although both diskette boxes and cigarette boxes may feature either forward or backward hinging/opening lids, the cigarette boxes have tended to be mostly backward hinging, by tradition and to allow exposure of more of the front of the cigarette including the brand logo when the box is open. Certainly with the further evolution of computer media from magnetic diskettes to laser read optical discs (compact discs, or “CD's”); the need to develop even more clever boxes that can dispense/index stacked articles was gone, since the side-by-side stacking of blank/writable CD's or recorded/indexed CD's would cause undue scratching unless they are sleeved. Consequently, boxes for flat discs include the now familiar individual cases useful for a single CD, such as for a music CD or movie DVD.
Examples of boxes where the hinged cover flips forward, and which are useful for holding flat articles such as computer discs, index cards, and the like, include boxes described in the following references; U.S. Pat. No. 4,546,898 to Ekuan; U.S. Pat. No. 4,696,397 to Nakamats; U.S. Pat. No. 4,735,309 to Nemeth; U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,999 to Kin-Shon; and, U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,415 to Posso. Of these examples, the boxes claimed in '415 (Posso) and in '999 (Kin-Shon) lean backwards when opened so as to “display” the front most flat item in a rearward tilted position. Quite different from these examples, and apparently unique, is the box claimed in the '898 patent (Ekuan) that pulls and opens forward, with a concomitant forward tilt to the contents of the box.
Forward tilting boxes may be useful for offering up items in a “dispensing” or “one-at-a-time” orientation. Most recognizable are soda can case cartons that have a wedge at the rearward edge of the bottom panel to tilt the case forward and toward the consumer so that the soda cans roll forward each time one is pulled from the carton. U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,943 to Powell claims an example of such a forward-tilted carton useful for dispensing soda cans. For dispensing flat or substantially flat articles or packages standing on their edges, some rearward-tilted cartons are known. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,382,526 to Stone claims a downward and rearwardly inclined carton for dispensing substantially flat articles and U.S. Pat. No. 4,433,778 to Maio et al. claims a downward and rearwardly sloping display carton. For dispensing flat objects from a forwardly-tilted container or box, there are few options to be found. One such forwardly-tilted container that appears useful for dispensing individual flat packages is disclosed by Antal et al. in U.S. Patent Application 2008/0135440. However, the Antal dispenser does not have a lid of any sort and there is no provision for ensuring the removal of only one flat package at a time from the container.
What is clear from a perusal of the literature and the marketplace is that there are no examples of a forward-tilted dispensing box useful for dispensing flat articles stacked side-by-side that also features a forward swinging, drop-down lid. Indeed, what it is entirely lacking in the market is a hinged-lid box that opens forward, and which is tilted forward such that the flat articles are leaning at the front of the box for easy removal one-at-a-time by the consumer.